OPINION: ‘Why, like New Zealand, aren’t we more proud of our indigenous people?’

IS AUSTRALIA more racist than it thinks? Following the SBS documentary First Contact, maybe as a country we have to face up to some harsh truths.

Children from around Jabiru in Kakadu National Park are taught Bininj Gunborrk — traditional singing and dancing — by indigenous elders in weekly gatherings to keep their culture alive. Call out racism, UN official tells PM

OPINION

“JUST the way they walk around in Darwin. It’s different. There’s something about it. They’re blacker up there.”

That’s just one of the many responses I’ve heard in Sydney and Brisbane from non-Aboriginal people about indigenous Australians as they learned I had spent more than five years working as a journalist in Darwin and throughout the Northern Territory.

The mere mention of the Top End to those from outside the NT seemed to open an invisible door in which many unprompted racist comments about Aboriginal Australians were spewed through.

These comments were not made based on experience or encounters with First Nation people.

They were based on unfounded fears and assumptions and made despite a lack of exposure and in most cases, no real life exposure at all.

They became so common upon my return to Sydney 15 months ago that I started documenting them.

If I, as a non-Aboriginal, had witnessed such extreme and regular prejudice towards indigenous Australians in just one year, what must those who identify as indigenous be subjected to daily and over a lifetime?

I have covered many stories about racism for major news publications over the years. One incident that sticks out in my mind was about an Aboriginal elder who had been performing at a traditional ceremony for a deceased loved one. He called several taxis to take him home when he was done. One after one, the taxis would pull up, see him, and take off before he could get near.

In the end, the man’s non-Aboriginal friend had to hail a taxi, on his behalf. The taxi company told me it was “because he was wearing traditional face paint”. Famed singer Gurrumul, who has performed for the queen and on stage with the likes of Stevie Wonder, had the same problem when he tried to get a taxi home after performing with Missy Higgins in Melbourne. The taxis would come, see him, and drive away.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was refused a taxi after a concert when the driver arrived and saw him.

It was unsettling to repeatedly hear so many first hand accounts of racial profiling from some of the most peaceful, generous, talented, wise and lovely people I have ever met.

But to realise the perpetrators weren’t just a handful of disgruntled taxi drivers or shop owners and that they were seemingly everywhere, was perhaps the most shocking revelation of all.

“I went to Darwin but the problems with Aboriginals are everywhere,” one man in a senior professional job recently said to me.

“They’re not like the ones in Redfern. It’s really bad. Same as in Western Australia. They were scary. I didn’t know what to think of them.”

I asked the man if his views were formed on a particular experience. Had he had a particular scary encounter with an Aboriginal person that had led him to fear an entire race?

“No,” he said.

Another woman told me: “I’m worried because there’s apparently a lot of Aboriginals (in the town we’re going to). My family doesn’t like them. I’ve never met one. I don’t know anything about them.”

On another occasion, a quietly spoken, professional man said to me: “Education is the key to getting them all off the dole. The problem is they just don’t want what the government is offering them. They have to want it.”

Some of the children journalist Megan Palin met during her time reporting in the Northern Territory. Picture: Elise Derwin.

Traditional dance is an important part of indigenous culture. Picture: Elise Derwin.

These were not trolls trying to incite hate from behind a keyboard. They were university educated, professional people who were speaking honestly and without inhibition. They were mothers, fathers, seasoned travellers, progressive millennials and people who were otherwise kind, intelligent, understanding, informed and open-minded.

None of them thought they were racist and all were offended at the implication their comments were, at best, unintentionally derogatory.

“Your Aboriginals are so black up there,” one such woman in an executive role said to me.

“I went to Darwin once and just noticed all the Aboriginal homeless people. I was just shocked by how they were everywhere.”

Do the white homeless people in Sydney shock you, I asked?

“I haven’t really paid much attention to that,” she replied.

On another occasion, a PhD student told me she had just returned from attending a wedding in Darwin.

“There are a lot of black people in Darwin. I don’t think I’ll go back here again,” she said.

Did you have a bad encounter while there? I asked.

“No,” she said.

Christopher Gawiwwiri, 11, takes a break from practising Bininj Gunborrk in a dry river bed out of Jabiru in September 2015. Picture: Elise Derwin.

One of her friends declined an invitation to the wedding in the first place because she was “too scared to go to Darwin because of all the Aboriginals”.

But the problem is so much deeper and ingrained than derogatory comments behind closed doors. What these attitudes showed me was that many Australians, no matter how down to earth or intelligent they might seem, quite simply don’t understand, respect or appreciate Aboriginal Australians, their culture or history.

Yes, there are Aboriginal communities that have problems with alcohol and violence.

But I’ve seen more white people drunk in pubs or drugged out on the streets in broad daylight in my first year back in Sydney than I ever saw Aboriginal people drunk in the parks of Darwin or remote communities.

This is not to undermine any violence or abuse that has happened or exists now. There are undoubtedly problems in some Aboriginal communities, as there are in non-Aboriginal communities, towns and cities. But it’s important to highlight that violence, alcohol abuse and domestic violence are not Aboriginal problems. They are Australian problems.

And in the same way those social issues don’t define non-Aboriginal people or Australia as a whole, they also shouldn’t define Aboriginal Australia.

What I saw during my years in the NT was a beautiful culture, that embraced family, music, storytelling, dance, tradition, food and the environment. Everyday people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, working together in the likes of parliament, universities, schools, media organisations, fashion houses and in trade and government jobs.

Charismatic park rangers who bursted with pride at showing tourists the land their ancestors roamed tens of thousands of years earlier. Elders who shared their Dreamtime stories, culture and traditions with anyone willing to listen, watch or learn.

Artists, musicians and so many types of people who brought something truly special to every place they visited and to those who encountered and connected with them. Children, smiling and laughing — everywhere.

Yet it seems, for many people, there’s a lack of visibility and acknowledgment of our indigenous population unless a few members are lying drunk in a park. How much of our nation perceives Aboriginal Australians is in stark contrast to the way New Zealand embraces the culture of its Maori people.

Why, like New Zealand, aren’t we more proud of our indigenous people? Why aren’t we boasting to the rest of the world about this magnificent culture that exists here in Australia and includes world class art, traditional dancing, music and so much more?

A culture where family is everything and ties to ancient ancestors are strong. Where are the pictures of our First Nation people in our international airports, tourism advertising campaigns and on the cover of mainstream magazines?

Why is it such a stretch to imagine an Aboriginal male or female being cast on a show like The Bachelor or Bachelorette? Isn’t it impressive that we have young children in remote communities speaking several languages, their native tongue and English, fluently?

And that we live alongside members of the oldest living culture on earth? To hear Dreamtime stories from Aboriginal elders and watch them pass it onto their children under an open sky is truly a magical experience.

There is a rich, wonderful culture that exists within Australia that many people don’t seem to acknowledge, understand or even know about. Perhaps life simply hasn’t led them to be exposed to that, as it did me and so many others. That’s understandable. But it also makes their negative attitudes towards Aboriginal Australians even more unfair.